Wild Mango Could Help Tackle Global Chocolate Crisis

                Scientists may have found a solution to the global chocolate crisis caused by a cocoa shortage by using by wild mango as a new cocoa butter alternative. Researchers discovered wild mango butter can be used as an alternative to cocoa butter. Disease and crop failure made the price of cocoa butter more than double between 2005 and 2015, with prices set to rise by 30% by 2020. Cocoa butter is the pure butter extracted from cocoa beans and is one of the unique natural fats highly demanded by food, pharmaceuticals and cosmetic industries and in particular is a major ingredient in the chocolate industry.

                Cocoa butter is currently the only commercially available natural fat which is rich unsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids. Moreover, the price of coca butter is one of the highest among all tropical fats and oils. The price of cocoa butter more than doubled between 2005 and 2015. The discovery could see mango butter – which is lower in fat – plucked from obscurity. Wild mango was a so-called “Cinderella” species – one which is visually appealing but currently overlooked – with its real potential still unrealized. The identification of value could pluck it from obscurity into mainstream production.